(i) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical box mounting bracket and to an electrical box assembly comprising an electrical box or any similar component connected to such a bracket.
More particularly, this invention relates to a unitary electrical box mounting bracket which may be attached to either side of a standard steel or other stud conventionally used in the construction of walls of new buildings, or directly to any substantially flat surface without intermediate modification of the bracket.
(ii) Brief Description of the Prior Art
In the construction of walls for residential or commercial buildings, use is frequently made of steel channel studding (or stud) having two lateral opposing walls and one back wall so that the studding is U-shaped in cross-section. This studding may be of various standard sizes (e.g. 2".times.4") and is commonly characterised by inturned right-angled lips at the free edges of its lateral walls. Furthermore the studding generally carries a wide but, shallow recess along the length of the reverse face of its back wall in order to strengthen the studding. Thus the reverse face of the studding is not completely flat.
Efforts have been made to design a clip for attachment to such studding while making use of the inherent characteristics of the stud.
By way of example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,684,230 and 3,730,466 disclose box mounting devices which clip onto an electrical box and are sprung to be held in position by the stud.
Commander, a company of St Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, Canada, produces a clip, advertised on page 38 of its brochure, for attachment of a box to studding. The clip is pliable and is molded using pliers round the contours of the stud.
Canadian Pat. No. 383,323 discloses an electrical box mounting clip using two U-shaped grippers which are sprung to retain the clip behind the lips of the stud. Such a clip may only be secured in the open, forward face of the stud. However in the supplementary disclosure attached to this Canadian patent, a further modification of the clip allows the two U-shaped grippers to be removed by the application of pliers in order that the clip may be secured to the reverse face of the back wall of the stud using screws or similar means.
RACO Inc., a company of South Bend, Ind., USA, produces a snap-in bracket attached to square boxes. This bracket is shown on page 13, 17th edition, of that company's 1986 catalogue. These brackets are designed to snap into the open face of standard studding. This is achieved by a winged arranged of the bracket with appropriate pieces cut away to accomodate the lips of the stud. However this design suffers from being only attachable to one face, namely the open face of the stud, and when attached, the RACO bracket suffers from some instability which is undesirable when constructing the electrical infrastructure of a building.
Therefore, it is clearly desirably to have a bracket which may be quickly and securely fastened to studding in forward or reverse orientation or to any flat surface.